


From Below, With Love

by Stilienski



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Embedded Images, Epistolary, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Historical References, Letters, M/M, Softie Crowley (Good Omens), which I haven't fact checked too closely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-20 09:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19989703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stilienski/pseuds/Stilienski
Summary: After his bookstore went up in flames, Aziraphale is quite worried about his little shoebox full of memories he's kept over the millenia.To absolutely nobody's surprise, all the memories are things Crowley sent him.





	From Below, With Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lonaargh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonaargh/gifts).



> A very very very happy birthday to [Lonaargh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonaargh), and may you live long enough for this fic to look like a clay tablet in your memory box. (>.> it is way past my bedtime I don't have to make sense)
> 
> A humongous thank you to [Junglejelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junglejelly) for letting me rant about this fic, for giving me all the Good Omens advice and for the very last minute beta <3 You're the best

Who knew fighting off the end of the world would be so terribly stressful? He had more than deserved to end it all with a dinner at the Ritz, joined by his… his Crowley. Aziraphale hadn’t expected life to just continue, he had been prepared to lose his wonderful wine and his fancy food, but in the end it was just all… fine. It was just a normal day.

He looked contently at the demon across from him, who seemed quite pleased himself. 

“I’m glad I could take you to dinner again, angel, I wasn’t sure it would happen again with all that mess,” Crowley admitted. 

Aziraphale felt a pleasant warmth rise to his cheeks. “The last time was…”

“... Paris, in the seventies, if I’m not mistaken,” Crowley’s lips turned up into a smug smirk. “All I had to do was send you a cheesy postcard and you just flew right over.”

“I happen to like cheesy postcards,” he smiled fondly as he thought of his little shoe box at home where he kept all the little letters and cards Crowley sent him through the eons. The smile disappeared as soon as he realized this wasn’t just a normal day. This was the day after the apocalypse, the day after his bookstore burned down. His voice was small when an “oh, no” fell from his lips. 

Crowley shot up straight in his chair, looking around to see if the world was exploding behind him. He frowned when he couldn’t find anything the angel could possibly be looking at. “What is it?”

“My postcard. And the letters you sent. I kept them all in my memory box in the bookstore…” Aziraphale trailed off, hanging his head. That dessert suddenly didn’t seem all that great anymore. He pushed it around with his spoon for a bit, until Crowley seemed to catch on. 

“The bookshop is fine, angel,” he reassured him, but Aziraphale must have looked quite doubtful still when he glanced up at the demon. “But we can go and take a look to be sure,” Crowley said as he signalled the waiter for the bill. 

“But you haven’t finished your tiramisu,” he tried to be considerate, when really he wanted to jump up and run out without even paying the bill.

“We’ll have to come back soon then. Maybe you can take me for once to make it up to me.” Aziraphale couldn’t be entirely sure because of the sunglasses, but he could have sworn he saw Crowley give him a wink at that. 

Crowley quickly paid for dinner and drove them both to the bookstore as if they had hellhounds snapping at their heels. And for once, Aziraphale didn’t mind.

*****

Before the car was even properly parked, Aziraphale got out and rushed to the back of the bookshop. Crowley got in just in time to see him reverently holding an old shoebox. They both breathed a sigh of relief. Aziraphale obviously wasn’t content to just hold the box though, he sat down in the middle of the sofa and opened the box up on his lap. Crowley was content to pretend to be indifferent and stare at the angel’s reactions from a safe distance, but Aziraphale had gotten quite good at thwarting ineffable plans these days. He looked at Crowley, a shy smile on his face as he patted the seat next to him. 

The first thing he pulled out of the box was the very first message Crowley had ever sent to him. 

A clay tablet. He’d had it delivered by a scrappy and hungry looking boy in exchange for a loaf of bread. 

_ Translation:  _ _ Aziraphale, a new place opened up at the harbour, the view of the sea is heavenly, the fish is great and the wine is beautiful. Would Aziraphale wish to go with Crowley? Wine at sunset? _

Crowley reached out and gently stroked the indents in the clay. He remembered the hours he’d spent painstakingly thinking about the right message to send and then carving it out without using his magic mumbo jumbo because for some reason that seemed like the way to go about it. 

“The view really was quite something,” Aziraphale murmured, before ever so carefully putting the clay tablet down and pulling the next thing out of the box. 

Aziraphale chuckled. “We never did go to a barbecue together. Although I’d prefer to not do it over a burning city if it’s all the same to you.” 

“No burning city would live up to burning Rome, so I suppose I shouldn’t try to replicate it for you. I’m sure we can manage with a decently sized forest fire.” 

Aziraphale gasped and gave a reprimanding tap to his knee. 

Laughing, Crowley added, “I’m sure we can find a normal barbecue somewhere, though I hear the arctic circle is burning… you know, just in case you change your mind on the forest fire.”

He didn’t even dignify that with a response, just reached for the next letter.

“I never knew you were quite so artistic, Crowley. For centuries I thought you had someone else copy it for you, or that you used your magic.”

“Magic makes it look all weird, believe me, I tried.” Crowley admitted. “I loved that bible, you still have it somewhere, right?” 

“Of course I do,” Aziraphale looked more than mildly offended. “It is spectacular and quite hilarious.” He thought of the collection he’d started, every weird bible making him think of Crowley. He’d always thought the demon would be pretty pleased with himself, maybe even proud of Aziraphale for collecting all these erroneous scriptures. 

“I’ll show you my collection of unique bibles later over a cup of cocoa if you want?” He asked hesitantly, maybe too many bibles around would make a demon uncomfortable? Then again Crowley had never shown any sign of unease around the ones in his shop.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, angel.”

With a blush, Aziraphale took out another piece of paper. 

The blush on his cheeks did nothing but flare up even brighter when his eyes skimmed over the familiar letter. “Be honest, did you tempt him into writing such a… such a…”

“Oh dear, no. Of course not. I wouldn’t cheat on our little bet like that. Our lot won him fair and square, no influence from any demons, I made quite sure of that.” Aziraphale couldn’t detect a hint of a lie in that. 

Crowley let his voice drop to a slightly deeper register, something Aziraphale’s books would describe as sultry. “Though  _ someone _ clearly tempted him. The vigor with which he wrote this song, angel… it was rather inspiring.”

The easiest way out was to pick up the next letter, so Aziraphale quickly did just that.

“Oh I remember that one! You never got back to me on that,” Crowley said with a teasing smile. 

Aziraphale shrugged. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean.” 

“Are you trying to convince me that Italian soldier wasn’t you? You befriended an entire army. After keeping them all alive during a war,” Crowley paused for effect. “And then you just… went home with them.” 

“Oh you know how I get attached,” Aziraphale huffed.

Crowley smiled fondly while Aziraphale went looking through the box again. “Yes I do.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Aziraphale started, “how do you know such details about an angel’s backside?”

It wasn’t often that Crowley, the first tempter himself, was caught off guard. But that did it. Flustered, he tried to mutter something about wings being soft and on the back, but he didn’t quite succeed in having it make sense. 

Aziraphale wasn’t one to let him suffer too long though. 

“It’s been decades, but that’s still funny,” Crowley said triumphantly.

“Well it did get me to Paris,” Aziraphale admitted. “Although that might have been because of the dinner you promised me next to my favorite bookstore. Which you conveniently forgot to mention had closed down.” 

Crowley shrugged, “I wanted you to actually come to dinner, not leave me to eat alone. That would have been such a shame for the cheese platter. Without your bottomless pit to assist me I would have never been able to finish it.”

Aziraphale started to gather all the notes again to put them carefully back in the box when Crowley’s eyes fell on another note that Aziraphale was skipping for some reason. “What about this one?” He asked as he pulled it out. 

He immediately wanted to put it back when he saw what it was. Aziraphale always wrote him back but he hadn’t for this letter, so Crowley had just assumed it had mercifully gotten lost in the mail. Drunk dialling, drunk texting… Crowley had done it before it was a thing. He had gotten so sinfully inebriated that he’d managed to convince himself it was a good idea to send a  _ marriage proposal _ . He felt his cheeks heating up and knew they’d be as bright red as his hair. 

“Oh… that one,” Aziraphale  huffed, disgruntled . “I still don’t understand why you thought it necessary to send me that. You know how much I loved William. Why would you mock such a beautiful sonnet?” Of all the reactions Crowley had expected, being mildly annoyed wasn’t one of them. 

“I wasn’t mocking it… not really…” But Crowley knew Aziraphale would want a better explanation than that. He never understood why the angel got so attached to Shakespeare of all people, he was a prick, no wonder Hell got him. 

“You crossed out random words! What other purpose could there be if not to mock him?”

“It wasn’t…” Crowley sighed. “Fine. First of all, I was incredibly drunk at the time.”

“Why would you have been drunk? You barely ever get drunk. Usually you’re with me when it happens and it only happens when one of us needs some extra courage. Nothing particularly stressful was going on at that time, was there?” In another life if such a thing existed for divine beings, Aziraphale would have made a perfect confused puppy. 

“I did need courage. I wanted to ask you something, but it wasn’t a good idea at the time,” Crowley huffed. “Probably still isn’t.”

Aziraphale waited patiently. Which was a sham and a trick and pure deceit. Crowley had never met a more impatient person than Aziraphale. 

“Just, read the words that aren’t crossed out. Though again, I was terribly drunk, and I’m not sure how much sense it makes.” 

To Crowley’s dismay Aziraphale started reading it out, mumbling it to himself just loud enough for Crowley to hear every single embarrassing syllable. 

“My dearest Aziraphale, Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest that face dost bless me. For is he so fair my husband? I so love thou and all the lovely of thine golden bu-” Aziraphale shot him a sharp look. “I do not have a golden butt. I’m not a christmas ornament.” 

Crowley didn’t dignify that with a response, instead he waited for it to finally sink into the angel’s thick skull. One second… three seconds… seven-

“Your husband?” 

“Well obviously that’s a bit much… again, I cannot stress enough how drunk I was.” It was surprisingly difficult to go back on words that he put to paper centuries ago. “But I do hope I’m not the only one who feels that we are… something to each other?”

“Of course we are! We are…” Aziraphale tried to find the word he was looking for.  _ Friend _ wouldn’t cut it,  _ boyfriend _ sounded so strangely juvenile all of a sudden and  _ soulmate _ was somehow worse than  _ husband _ . Though all of them did hold a certain promise Aziraphale would very much like to experience.

“You’re my…” Crowley jumped in as well but couldn’t finish his sentence either. Aziraphale wasn’t used to the demon looking so unsure of himself, it seemed so beneath Crowley to doubt himself.

So he looked Crowley straight in the eyes and said with conviction,“I’m your Aziraphale. You’re my Crowley.”

Crowley looked surprised for a second before nodding vigorously in agreement. “Yes. You’re my Aziraphale. Quite right.” 

Aziraphale looked down at the poem in his hand once more, his eyes falling on  _ husband _ once more, then on the  _ but _ . “But maybe…” he started hesitantly. “Maybe you could be my Crowley that… I kiss sometimes?” 

“Only a kiss? And only sometimes? I feel like Mozart would have a thing or two to say about that.” And before Aziraphale could tell him not to, Crowley started singing at the top of his lungs.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!  
> Leave some kudos if you did so I know if I should do something like this again :D


End file.
